


traditions

by sunflowerbright



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Feuilly Week, Gen, because that is the best thing ever tbh, i meant to have them discuss politics but they ended up discussing pirates instead, oh woe is me, prompt from anon on tumblr!, who asked for enjolras and feuilly friendship, written for feuilly week 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 10:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerbright/pseuds/sunflowerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Remember,” Enjolras says, eyes intent on Feuilly. “When we were discussing pirates?”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	traditions

**Author's Note:**

> _prompts? how about feuilly and enjolras hanging out and being friends and maybe fangirling each other a bit? :D_ (from an anon on tumblr)
> 
> I don't own Les Mis, or any of its characters. Nor do I own _Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth Century Caribbean_ , a quite excellent book by B.R. Burg

 

The book bumps down on the table in front of him with a loud thud, and Feuilly would have probably jumped in surprise and maybe accidentally injured himself, if not for the fact that he had already heard Enjolras come in through the door.

“Remember,” Enjolras says, eyes intent on Feuilly. “When we were discussing pirates?”

Feuilly can’t help but snort, because of course he remembers it: it had started when Bossuet had gotten en eye-infection, and had had to wear an eye-patch for a few days. When he’d first come in, all there had been to it were a few bad puns made by himself and Grantaire, but by the second day, Bahorel had come in and, with a completely serious face, placed a small parrot, no doubt ‘borrowed’ from the shop he volunteered at, on Bossuet’s shoulder.

The parrot had stared at Bossuet intently, just as Bossuet had stared back. Then it’d led out a loud squawk, and Joly had burst into laughter, quickly followed by the rest of them.

“I remember Grantaire and Courfeyrac almost ending their friendship over whether Anne Bonney or Jeanne-Louise de Belleville was the better pirate, and you having to step in between them before it got bloody.”

“It wasn’t as bad as when the argument on whether Ch’iao K’uo Füü Jëën was real or not started,” Enjolras mutters, horror on his face at the memory.

“Lack of proof makes settling that one hard.”

“Jehan still glares at Combeferre whenever it’s mentioned.”

Feuilly laughs again as Enjolras sits down beside him, putting his attention back on the book on the table. “And this is…?”

Enjolras shrugs and slides it over the table. “You seemed interested in the whole debate. I mean,” Enjolras stops himself then, searching for words. “I know that you’re interested in everything. Really everything. And you seem to _know_ everything. It’s quite… amazing.”

Feuilly shifts, a little unnerved by the attempted compliment: unnerved in a good way, he thinks. He’s just… not used to positive attention like that.

Usually people judge him as soon as they learn he isn’t taking an education

The problem is that none of them understand that _he is_. What he learns simply isn’t educated by the government.

He picks up the book, and raises an eyebrow in surprise. “ _’Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition_ ’?” he laughs. “Enjolras, is this a hint?”

The sound that Enjolras makes is startled, but also amused. “I’m not _that_ bad at admitting things. I personally prefer the one where you bake a cake to the person you intent to tell, and the message is in the frosting.”

“Ah, messages in the frosting,” Feuilly sighs. “The best way to come out.”

“My mother’s face was priceless.”

“When I was still living with Bahorel,” Feuilly realises he hasn’t told this story to Enjolras before when the other’s eyes immediately light up: they do this. Trade stories like they’re fine marbles traded by children. It’s small things, like these, anecdotes that anyone tells their friends, or even half-strangers that they feel comfortable enough with. But it is not just that. It’s Feuilly clinging to tales of Enjolras parents, flawed and resented for the better part of his childhood, because they simply did not understand their son, but with an undercurrent of love that never goes away, and comes back after forgiveness and understanding has been reached, at least to a degree. It’s Enjolras listening with rapt attention when Feuilly describes being hauled from a bed that isn’t really his and thrown into lakes and thorny bushes by kids who are older and more hateful than him, describes having to choose between buying proper clothes for the winter or having food for the next few days, describes stealing, and regretting it with every fibre of his being, and then doing it again, because when you’re twelve and cold and freezing and no-one is coming out to pick you up and take you back inside, you don’t have much else of a choice.

“We hardly knew each other at first,” he continues the tale. “I needed a place to stay, he needed someone to help pay the rent. And he was… well, he was Bahorel, and I was absolutely terrified of revealing too much, because it was his flat and he could throw me out any moment and…” he stops, feeling ridiculous at the very idea that he might have felt that way about Bahorel at any time. “When we grew closer, I really wanted to tell him, but every single time I almost got to it, I chickened out or turned it into a joke. And then one day when I got up for work, there was a giant cake in the table in the kitchen, with scrabble-tiles stuck into the rainbow-frosting saying: _‘you know, I’m not straight either’.”_

“Scrabble-tiles?” Enjolras blinked. “Edible or?”

“Nah, he was too lazy to do the words in actual frosting,” Feuilly shrugs, and Enjolras laughs. “You know how he is.”

“That I do.”

Feuilly picks the book up again. “It’s worth a read?”

“Definitely.” It had been a silly question: Enjolras brings him a lot of books, and all of them had been worth reading. “It’s very reliant on the theoretical side of it all, but it raises some excellent questions. And it’s done with… ah, I won’t say grace, maybe with… tact?”

“It’s done with clearly good intentions, but in scrabble-tiles?”

Enjolras grins. “Exactly.”


End file.
